Category: local missions

We promised to post the list of Blessing Boxes/Little Free Pantries that we know about in the area, so here they are. These are take what you need, give what you can spots. No questions asked. Please message us if you know of others or you decide to put one up in your neighborhood and please let us know if you have the exact address for the ones we’re missing. Thanks so much!

Victor Farmington Library, 15 West Main Street; Victor, NY
298 South High Street Victor, NY
St. John’s Lutheran; 888 County Road 9; Victor, NY
Calm Lake Drive, Farmington, NY
Martensia Park, 1390 Mertensia Road; Farmington, NY
1790 Opal Drive, Farmington, NY
Gannett Road; Farmington, NY
99 Chapin Street; Canandaigua, NY (Noah’s Blessing Box)
Ditton Street; Lyons

Just search “Blessing Boxes” or “Little Free Pantries” if you’d like more details on this effort nationwide.

COMMUNITY-WIDE “DRIVE THRU” FOOD DISTRIBUTION
ONTARIO COUNTY RESIDENTS ONLY – ***PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED
Each household will receive three boxes of groceries containing dairy, cooked meat and produce: Milk, yogurt, cheese, chicken, ham, sausage, carrots, apples, etc.
Monday, June 8th
– Geneva 2:00 – 5:00 pm, Call 585-396-4522 to register
Geneva Enterprise Development Center (GEDC) 122 N. Genesee St. Geneva NY 14456

Monday, June 15th – Canandaigua 12:00 -3:00 pm, Call 585-396-4596 to register
Zion Fellowship 5188 Bristol Rd, Canandaigua, NY 14424

The Victor Farmington Food Cupboard will continue to be open Wednesdays and Sundays 2-4 pm for drive thru service. This is a stay in your car service. Just let us know how many people are in the family and pop your trunk. We realize many people need food support now that have never needed this before. Please do not hesitate to come, this is why we exist!

The V-F Food Cupboard is also hosting Pop-up food drives at various locations each week. The Victor Howard Hanna office in Mead Square will be hosting a popup drive thru food drive on June 13th 10 am to 2 pm.Check on their Facebook page or on our News Blog page for updates with dates and locations.

Please call us if you do not live close to the Food Cupboard and we will be able to tell you if we have emergency food boxes closer to your home. If you are unable to leave your home or know someone in this category, please call us for alternative arrangements: (585)924-2720.

*Emergency food boxes are also available at the church, please just email or call the office or Pastor Colin to pick-up curbside at the church.

Two more popup food drives next week to help us keep up: *Wednesday May 20th the van will be in the Top’s Friendly Markets in Farmington parking lot (off in the corner to socially distance) 8 am to 6 pm. *Saturday May 23rd the Fishers Fire District is hosting us at Station #2 on High Street in Victor from 10 am to 1 pm.

We are currently in need of: canned fruit and vegetables of all types, rice, oatmeal, pasta sauce and ready to eat soups with pull tabs. Also, jelly or jams and any reusable bags you do not need. These will both be drive thru no contact opportunities to drop off food.

A quick reminder that we are open Wednesdays and Sundays for drive thru service 2 to 4 pm. Please stay in your vehicle and if you can clear out your trunk that is very helpful. If your trunk will not open we will put the food next to your vehicle and have you put it inside after we move away to protect our volunteers. Please share this information as we strive to make sure no one is going hungry in our region. If you need food, you qualify to come! We do have a limited quantity of homemade masks so please ask for some if you need these.
Thank you!!

From the Victor-Farmington Food Cupboard:

Good Afternoon Food Cupboard Fans! Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have brought food donations to our first three popup food drives–you donated 4,236 pounds!!! Thank you so much!

We are hosting several more popup food drives over the next 10 days in case you’ve missed us or want to give again:

Saturday May 2nd— Willowbrook Christian Church in Victor 8 am to 2 pm. (This is right down the street from the Victor School campus where a can and bottle drive will be hosted to benefit us 10 am to 2 pm that day!! High School bus loop.)

Saturday May 9th—Victor Farmington Library parking lot 10 to 1 pm. We could use rice, pasta sauce, applesauce cups, granola bars, peanut butter, trail mix, canned fruit, macaroni and cheese, cereal and oatmeal. Also, any canned protein–tuna, canned chicken, beans, etc. Thanks so much!

Wednesday May 20th *new date*– Top’s Markets in Farmington 8 am to 6 pm

We would be delighted and grateful to accept any unexpired food at this time. To give you a general frame of reference, we are currently feeding about 1500 people per month and sending out over 18,000 pounds of food. While nothing is certain right now, we do anticipate a significant increase in need over the next six months. If you garden please consider this idea: www.americasgrowarow.org and if you don’t have land, what about a bucket garden? (There are lots of resources and YouTube instructions online!)

Good Morning Food Cupboard fans! We have been asked why we aren’t sending out a plea for financial contributions and wanted to address this. While we are extremely grateful for any financial assistance, we are also exquisitely aware of the significant pain and economic stress of this time. We have been on the receiving end of decades of generous community support and strong partnerships with businesses, churches, community organizations and individuals which have allowed us to position ourselves to respond to hunger insecurity in our region with agility during this time.

We are uncertain what the next six months will bring in terms of need but we are certain that the increase will be significant and may persist for some time. In preparation, we are hosting the popup food drives several times a month and if you are in a position to give a financial donation our board is focused on leveraging funds efficiently (PO Box 154; Victor, NY 14564 or our website has a donate button)

Fortunately, we are a member agency of Foodlink and a front door agency for them in Ontario County. We continue to rely heavily on their support.

We want to stress that we are extremely grateful for the generosity that has been showered upon our organization. Most importantly right now, please please do not hesitate to come to us if you are in need of food even if you have never asked for help before. If you are concerned about the stigma please call us and we will work something out for you. We want you to stay fed so you can stay well and you are not alone, many people have called to say they used to give to us and now they need help with food.

Our drive thru food distributions are Sundays and Wednesdays 2-4 pm. These are no contact opportunities to get food.

From the Victor-Farmington Food Cupboard:

The Food Cupboard has started a series of “Pop Up Food Donation Drives” . We have held off on accepting food donations for several weeks but this will be the beginning of accepting food in the community and then putting that food “in quarantine” so that it is ready to be packed over the coming weeks. Please note that we would still prefer not to have food donations at our physical location.
Here are the details for the next pop up food drive:
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2020
8:00 am to 6:00 pm
Top’s Market in Farmington
*Please check dates on any donated food, this will save our volunteers quite a bit of time.*
Just place your donation in our van at Top’s Market in Farmington on Earth Day!! We are in need of everything but especially *Canned fruit *Rice *Oatmeal *Mac and Cheese *Pasta *Pasta sauce. Please do respect social distancing rules and stand back if someone else is near the van. If you need food, please come to our drive thru emergency food distribution tomorrow, April 22nd, 2 to 4 pm at the Food Cupboard on Commercial Drive in Farmington (Commercial Drive is off Route 96 across from Park Place Restaurant). You do not need to qualify for this service, if you need food you just pull up and let us know how many people are in your family and pop your trunk. We know people who have never imagined asking for help before need help now, please do not hesitate to come!!Thanks so much and please share the event if you can!

We are currently open only Wednesday and Sunday afternoons 2-5 to give out emergency food boxes in drive thru fashion. If you need food, pull up and stay in your vehicle. No documentation required and we move pretty quickly.

If you are longing to help, we are currently NOT accepting food donations (we would have to sanitize every item) or additional volunteer help. Both of these moves are to keep everyone safe and when this is over we will need both food and volunteers again and will happily accept both!

If you still want to do something to support the community you could consider these ideas:

*Google “Little Free Pantry” and consider putting a food drop off/pick up site in your neighborhood. With job losses, people who never needed this before may need help now and be too embarrassed to ask. People also may not have the money for the gas to get to us. (We’re hearing that quite a bit.)

* If you are going out for takeout or gas, consider picking up a gift card and giving it to someone who just lost their job or a health professional or pastor working extra shifts in extremely difficult circumstances.

* If you are on an email list please consider sharing our Wednesday/Sunday emergency food box distribution times and please stress that there is no documentation required and no need to show qualification. You come, you get food!

* If you are in a position to do this and would like to donate financially we are always grateful for that. We’re working with Facebook to solve this issue but currently our website will not go through if posted. You can Google us and it will come up. Also, we are extremely grateful to Foodlink right now so you may want to consider supporting that fantastic organization!

*Please consider sharing this post if you can, and thank you for friending us. We will post daily updates and happy stories!

Thank you!!!!!!